Bats Behind Mystery Virus That Has Killed 47 People
Health officials said Wednesday that bats from Saudi Arabia are responsible for a mysterious virus that has brought on at least 47 deaths in the Middle East.
Over the past fifteen months, at least 96 people have been diagnosed with a mysterious virus that all too often can become lethal. Known as the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), the outbreak has the lives of more than half the people who were diagnosed with it.
Its cause has remained largely unknown, until now. Health officials confirmed Wednesday that a bat, known as the Egyptian tomb bat, which originates in Saudi Arabia, is likely responsible for the outbreak. But questions still remain.
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The fecal samples of at least 100 bats that have "coronavirus" – the disease believed to have caused the human infection- were tested. Of those samples, only one perfect match to the MERS was discovered. Further problematic, the bats eat primarily insects making it difficult to understand how the virus may have been passed to humans. The virus likely travelled from Saudi Arabia to the Middle East via a human host.
The bats are known to seek shelter in abandoned buildings. Experts suggest that either a human or an animal could have inhaled excrements from the feces while in a contained space, but proof of that transfer is still unavailable. A significant amount of other tests will have to take place, Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, head of Columbia University's Center for Infection and Immunity, which has already done 15,000 polymerase chain reaction tests tracking the virus, explained in an interview with the New York Times.
"It's a huge amount of work," he said.
The infected bat was discovered near the area where the first victim of MERS, a wealthy 60-year-old man, owned a business in a warehouse. The warehouse contained a number of trees that would likely have attracted various bats.
